Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
"Nitta Sayuri reveals how she transcended her fishing-village roots and became one of Japan's most celebrated geisha."
- IMDB
Hello. Did I watch this movie because John Williams did the score? Yes, yes I did. Though when I saw names like Steven Spielberg, Rob Marshall, Colleen Atwood, & Yo-Yo Ma attached to the project, of course I was more than interested in the film as a whole. And yes, I did love the soundtrack. It was a very beautiful score, as expected from John Williams. The costume and set designs were also good as well as all the technical aspects in cinematography and lighting and such.
The story itself was unusually interesting. The story is about a little girl who spends her life trying to get with a man who is old enough to be her dad. Putting it like that, it's quite weird. But its actually easy to mind the age gap given that the characters are well written to the point that you root for Sayuri to get to the man she is in love with. Age gap relationships are normal, it just threw me off that their journey started when she was a child.
I wish there was a bit more from the Chairman's point of view. His side of the relationship was believable, but there were only a few scenes and about a dozen looks to show he felt the same. Nevertheless, it's an unconventional love story of a couple that I very much shipped, and a story I rather enjoyed.
The Japanese culture displayed through this movie made me very interested in Japanese culture as a whole. I'm slightly familiar in modern Japanese culture given my participation in things like anime & video games. But ancient Japanese culture is something I just don't know too much about. This movie made me so interested in the country and the concept of Geisha. I also loved that the entire cast was Asian. I believe that the cast wasn't entirely Japanese, but at least it wasn't a bunch of white actors pretending to be Asian or something. I'll give the film points for that. Nonetheless, I enjoyed researching Japan for myself and I learned what the movie/book did right & wrong. This added to my experience of the film as a whole. Cultural discrepancies aside, it's still a good story.
My Rating: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆